Left Col

UCL Urban Laboratory

UCL Urban Laboratory

exploring new methods of urban research across disciplinary boundaries

UCL Urban Laboratory

critical, independent, rigorous and original scholarship on cities

UCL Urban Laboratory

leading urban debate and the design and planning
of contemporary cities

UCL Urban Laboratory

engaging with London and its communities

UCL Urban Laboratory

developing international networks and
comparisons in urban research and action

UCL Urban Laboratory

drawing on UCL’s heritage of pioneering
urbanism

UCL Urban Laboratory

critical and creative urban thinking, teaching, research, practice

Patricia Noxolo - Urban Laboratory Lecture Series

Start:
Dec 11, 2018 06:30 PM
End:
Dec 11, 2018 08:00 PM

Location:
Room G03, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AP

Flat
Out! Dancing the City at a Time of Austerity

This paper
reflects on and challenges existing paradigms around movement and mobilisation
in and with the city.

This focus is provoked by a community arts project
called ‘Flat Out’, in which the researcher collaborated with the Drum
Intercultural Arts Centre and Birmingham Royal Ballet, on a dance project with
members of the community in the Lozells and Newtown areas of the city.

The paper pushes for more deeply embodied and more highly politicised versions
of place ballet and urban vortex, introducing a concept of choreography that
comes from dance practice, and working through decolonial and postcolonial
theories. A brief auto-ethnography of the author’s Birmingham childhood
illustrates that movement repertoires are diverse, historically and spatially
conditioned, and, in the case of Birmingham, located within an ongoing
‘decolonial churn’.

Dr Patricia Noxolo is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Birmingham. Her research is at the confluence of international development, culture and in/security, and uses postcolonial, discursive and literary approaches to explore the spatialities of a range of Caribbean and British cultural practices. She is lead researcher on the Leverhulme-funded project 'Caribbean In/Securities and Creativity'. Other recent work has focused on: community dance and austerity; on theorisations of space in Caribbean literature; on Caribbean laughter and materialities; and on African-Caribbean dance as embodied mapping.

The talk is part of our new autumn fortnightly lecture
series, investigating the meaning and renewed relevance of the term
'urban laboratory'. The lectures are free and no booking is required. Step free access to the room at 26 Bedford Way.